FinTech software products and applications are used by people all over the globe. In this article, we share more on some of the subtleties from the frontend perspective.

Today we were fortunate to have time with one of our Senior Frontend Developers, Juan Francisco Marino (Fran), who has spent several years working on FinTech applications.

Enter Fran…

What sort of challenges do you find interesting when building FinTech applications?

There are 3 interesting issues which impact the frontend.

Security

User Trust

Performance

Interesting, can you explain more about the security concerns?

Well, security is of course critically important, especially when considering the stakes at play, after all, you’re dealing with people’s money and sensitive information.

The application or platform should be capable of protecting against denial of service attacks, data intercepts, and other security issues to safeguard all of the sensitive user data and keep the profiles secure.

How about when it comes to user trust, can you elaborate?

When it comes to user trust, getting the workflow and interface right can be the difference of millions of dollars in revenue.

The user is visiting the platform with intent, however, there is built in anxiety because there is so much sensitive information at play. This could include bank accounts, personal identification information (PII), etc… Normally banks have a leg-up, due to them having fixed brick and mortar locations customers can go to and decades (if not centuries) of history.

FinTech applications have a higher hurdle to overcome as the new kid on the block who needs to prove themselves. This is where a well-built frontend can earn its money, literally.

It’s very interesting to me when reviewing where users might fall-off during the registration process due to concerns they feel while going through the workflow. For example, if they enter some information and then never come back, or if they make it all the way to the end, but then don’t complete the application. There was probably anxiety or lack of trust due to something that didn’t quite look or feel right to them. The details matter, especially reliability and just as important, the perception of reliability by the user.

When the interface is trustworthy, it drives more users, which turns to paying customers, and a monetized platform. When the users withdraw or don’t complete, it’s just the opposite, lost revenue, and probably them going to your competition because they already had the intent for the type of financial product.

You mentioned performance earlier, can you share more?

Performance, especially loading times can be a factor in gaining a user’s trust. Generally, two seconds is the threshold a user will deal with when waiting for a page to load or transaction to process. Anything longer, and you start to lose them or at least their confidence. The good thing is today, we have many modern frameworks which are built to facilitate high performance. Doing things like compressing images, right size, etc… can help to reduce load times. It’s also important to keep mobile performance at top of mind.

What type of people do you look for when hiring Senior Frontend engineers?

There are several!

First off, it’s more valuable for us to find a versatile generalist who knows the basics and is enthusiastic to learn other technologies than finding a specialist because technology is always evolving.

On the frontend, having some background in angular or react definitely helps. We have engineers who have worked with both and being flexible and open to working with either (or the next one that comes around) is good to have, and just as important, understanding the tradeoffs.

Also, being a strong communicator is critical. Requirements can change, and knowing how to ask the right questions and ensure everyone is on the same page is a must, or you run the risk of building a feature the business didn’t want.

If someone has worked on blockchain or other FinTech applications and understands the complexities of building for those users.

Lastly, we would prioritize data visualization skills, such as infographics or being able to convey graphics in a meaningful and compelling way. That is quite interesting to us.

Co-Authors

Juan Francisco Marino is a Senior Frontend Engineer for True North. He has spent several years as a javascript engineer. He is a computer science enthusiast and all around coding nerd. He enjoys making beautiful UIs and working with animations.

Brian Samson is a CoFounder of True North, where he leads strategy, operations, and delivery. Prior, he was on the leadership team for 3X startup exits. He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.